POSTSCRIPT: PERPETUAL WAR
NATO'S BIRTHDAY PRESENT
In this section, Johnstone notes that NATO's 50th anniversary celebration was held during the Kosovo War. The organization adopted a new strategic concept, an attempt to adjust to new post-Cold War realities--in her telling, this was all a cover to increased US hegemony and imperialism. She claims that these three elements of the strategic concept prove US dominance of the alliance:
1. Nuclear Weapons. She claims that the plan ended any hopes of nuclear disarmament by committing the alliance to maintaining their stockpiles. The proliferation of nuclear weapons by non-NATO countries is not discussed here--apparently, only the US is responsible for nuclear arms control
2. Interdependence. This "point" is all about circular reasoning--the link between the US and Europe proves US dominance because the US is the dominant power in the alliance, and that dominance is proved by the link between the US and Europe. Or something like that. The mere involvement of the US is, it seems, enough to prove the worst of intentions.
3. Military action outside of the NATO theater. It is true that NATO is evolving into a regional and even global police force. I, for one, would love to see NATO troops in Darfur. Johnstone is having none of it, of course--the sovereignty of smaller nations like Sudan is more important than asking the hard questions about who will enforce international standards of human rights in a dangerous world.
She ends by noting that NATO now considered their security risks to be terrorism, organized crime, and so on, rather than the Soviet threat. She really seems to believe that NATO has no business redefining its mission even though the Soviet threat, it is safe to say, had already vanished.
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